Chapter LXXXVII

Mira

It had all started so well. Not only was there something like an unspoken, mutual agreement between her and him to just accept how things were between them, accepting each other and just treasuring it for now, as those moments were rare enough in both their lives. For once there had not even been the hint of problems, no cloud on the horizon, nothing had disturbed the calm and lazy surface of the water, and what other phrases there might be, as they had visited a tiny, nice bazaar on a far off planet, walked around a bit, but of course, it hadn't lasted.

Just as the sense of danger, followed by a wave of hostile emotions, had fallen over her, the Doctor had yelled, "Run!"

And running they were, followed by the sound of energy weapons. She had no idea who was behind them, for the Doctor had cried not to turn around, and this time she had obeyed without questioning him for a second, so urgent had it sounded.

They finally reached the TARDIS and, not a second too late, got inside.

"Get down!" the Doctor yelled, and she could feel the heat from a blast on her skin as it went over her head, just before he slammed the door shut.

"Did they see you?" he yelled as she and Martha got up again.

"I don't know," Martha replied.

"Who?" she said, turning to him. "Who saw us?"

"Never mind that now," he replied, still yelling. "Did they see you?"

"Well, most likely as they were behind us and shooting, but-" she said, but he cut her short.

"It's important. Did they see your face?" he insisted.

"No, they couldn't have," Martha replied as she was still trying to work it out.

"No, most likely they didn't, depending on-"

How long they were following them, she had wanted to complete her sentence, but he jumped past her to the console.

"Off we go!" he said and the TARDIS started to dematerialise. Moments later there was a bleeping sound and he looked frantically at the screen"Argh! They're following us!"

"How can they do that?" Martha asked. "You've got a time machine."

"Stolen technology," he replied. "They've got a Time Agent's vortex manipulator. They can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe." His voice was hardly more than a whisper, as if realising something absolutely terrible. "They're never going to stop, unless... I'll have to do it."

"Do what?" she asked. "What is a vortex manipulator, and, who in bloody hell ARE THEY?"

Something about his behaviour made her absolutely mad. She felt that she would explode if he would not stop with- Yes, what was it? He wasn't panicking, but what else was it then? It was not that she could feel his emotions, but something of the state he was currently in was definitely getting at her, and it was certainly not only caused by merely watching him jumping around the console like mad.

There was this strange kind of connection, something she had not felt before with anyone else. Not quite empathy, more superficial than that, and yet deeper at the same time.

"Later," he said, stepped over to her and took her by the shoulders. "Mira, do you trust me?"

He looked her deeply in the eyes, and something in his voice almost made her shiver.

"Generally, yes, I guess," she said, quite confused, watching a big frown forming on his forehead. "Unless I get the feeling you're about to do something royally stupid, at least being so from my point of view, and-"

"Me? Stupid? Nah, never," he said and placed a big kiss on her forehead, relief written all over his face. Then he let go of her and turned to Martha. "Do you trust me? And don't you dare to be so relative about it as Mira!"

"Of course I do," Martha replied, confusion written all over her face.

"Because it all depends on the two of you," he said, dead serious now.

"Would you just stop speaking in riddles please?" she replied.

He pulled an ornately decorated, golden fob watch out of his pockets and held it under her nose.

"Take this watch," he said, took her right hand and closed it around the watch, "Because my life depends on it. This watch, Mira. The watch is me."

She weighed it in her hands, traced the engraved ornaments with her fingertips. Gallifreyan writing, wasn't it? It felt strangely warm and was heavier than it looked.

"A fob watch?" she said, digging through her mind, feeling there was something about it, knowing she had had a conversation about that topic, not too- "A fob watch? Seriously?" Suddenly she remembered. He had asked her if she had ever possessed one. But why? "How can this watch be you?"

He didn't directly reply to her question, but started to explain instead. "Those creatures are hunters. They can sniff out anyone, and me being a Time Lord, well, I'm unique. They can track me down across the whole of time and space."

"But you said they use stolen technology. So they are inferior to you, at least from a technology point of view?" she asked.

"Sure they are," he said casually before getting serious again. "They can smell me, they haven't seen me. And their life span'll be running out, so we hide. Wait for them to die."

"Wait for them to die? They hunt you, they're after you. So why don't face them and fight them instead of waiting? Waiting for how long exactly?" she said.

"Oh Mira," he replied softly, "One and a half millennium old and still so little patience? It won't be long, I promise."

She could feel Martha's gaze on her, feel her astonishment, her disbelief. Well, now that was out as well.

"But they can track us down," Martha finally said, recovering from the surprise.

"That's why I've got to do it. I have to stop being a Time Lord. I'm going to become human," he said whilst pulling a headset down from the ceiling. "Never thought I'd use this. All the times I've wondered."

"What does it do?" she wanted to know.

"Chameleon Arch. Rewrites my biology," he explained. "Literally changes every single cell in my body. I've set it to human."

He took the watch back from her and put it into the headset.

"Everything I am now will be in this watch. You have to take good care of it, because when it's lost..."

She watched back and forth between him and the watch as realisation hit her.

"You're fucking kidding me, aren't you?"

"Excuse me?" he had stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her.

"You've asked me if I've ever possessed a fob watch. Do you remember? Shortly after we've met. You thought I was only pretending to be human? Is that it? Am I right?"

"Oh no. No! I didn't think you were pretending. You would've been convinced you are human."

"But... Why?"

"Oh Mira, not now please," he replied and turned to the console, pressing buttons. "Now, the Tardis will take care of everything. Invent a life story for me, find me a setting and integrate me. Can't do the same for you. You'll just have to improvise. I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in. But I'm certain you will be fine, both of you. Mira, take care of Martha, will you?"

She could only nod. Not that she held a grudge because of the fob watch story, but it had been a slight shock nevertheless. And now this. She really wasn't into his plan about hiding.

"But, hold on," Martha said, "If you're going to rewrite every single cell, isn't it going to hurt?"

"Oh, yeah. It hurts," he said and pulled the headset over his head. The next minutes all she could do was watching him crying out in pain.

She entered his room, the tray Martha had given her balancing in her hands. Martha had taken on a function as a housemaid, whereas she herself was the Doctor's – or, as he was called now, Mr Smith's – personal secretary and assistant, as well as doing paperwork for the school whenever her time permitted it.

As she saw that he was still lying on his bed, dressed in his pyjamas, she turned around quickly, putting the tray on a small table.

"Pardon me, Mr Smith, I can come back later if you want."

He stood up, put on a dressing gown and replied, "No, it's all right, it's all right. I was er. Sorry, sorry. Sometimes I have these extraordinary dreams."

She turned around again, her eyes locked on him. Seeing him like that filled her with a mixture of fascination and sheer horror. It was as he had said – he was human now. Completely and utterly human, as human as anyone could be. He even smelled differently, as she noticed every time he went past her. His emotions, his whole personality now lay in front of her like an open book. As it was with any other human. And, frankly, the TARDIS had not chosen the most interesting of all personalities for him. Sure, it was for the best, but it – he – was so average. Somehow empty and average, apart from the dreams he was having. He was reading a lot and had some lively fantasy, but apart from that, nothing of his fiery personality was left. The dreams though worried her more than anything else. His old self was coming through as he slept, memories he should not have right now. How long could he stay like this? Would his true self take over at some point? She only wished there had been more time for him to answer her questions.

And, above all, it hurt her to see him like this. She knew he did not like it. It was not that he hated humans and for this didn't hate to be one; he just didn't want to be one. And, at the same time, he seemed so completely carefree and untouched by any dark events of his past, because there simply weren't any in the life the TARDIS had made up for him. He seemed to be content, at peace with himself, for the first time since who knew when.

She watched how he started to furrow his brows, suddenly realising she was staring at him for way too long.

"What about, sir?" she asked. "Those dreams, what were they about this time?"

"I dream I'm this adventurer. This daredevil, a madman. The Doctor, I'm called. And last night I dreamt that you were there, as my companion."

A madman? Certainly something to remind him about when all this is over, she thought, with a tiny hint of amusement.

"A teacher and his secretary sir? That's impossible," she replied softly.

"I'm a man from another world, though."

"Another world?" she asked cautiously, straightening her dark grey skirt with her hands. "There is no such thing. It's only a dream, nothing more."

"This thing. The watch is," he replied, walking over to the mantelpiece, picking up the watch, weighing it in his hand for a moment, before putting it back, seemingly deeply in thoughts. "Ah, it's funny how dreams slip away. But I do remember one thing; it all took place in the future. In the Year of Our Lord two thousand and seven."

"Well, that's the thing with dreams, isn't it?" she said, still observing him, hoping he would really take it as a dream, nothing more. "We wake up and think we'll never forget them. But then, just as the day gets brighter, they vanish into the shadows of our memories."

She immediately regretted having said something like that, as she saw the surprised look on his face.

"Anyway," she hurried to say, "I can prove that wrong, sir. I brought the morning paper. November tenth, nineteen thirteen, and you, I think you're completely human, sir. As human as anyone can be."

"Mmm, that's me," he replied quietly, opening the newspaper. "Completely human."


Martha

She was scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees, dressed in a black housemaids dress, complete with white hood and apron. How in hell had she ended up like this? Well, of course she knew, but why had the TARDIS given the role as a housemaid to her? Mira was his secretary and at least dressed in an elegant if a bit old-maidish grey skirt that was so long it touched the floor, a grey blouse, and, judging from the looks of it, a rather uncomfortable corset. And she was definitely not scrubbing the floor on hands and knees.

Mira wasn't really fifteen hundred years old, was she? Surely, the Doctor had been joking. She knew that Mira was older than she appeared to be, but not that much older. Fifteen hundred years. Fifteen hundred years ago had been the year five hundred, the very start of the middle ages in Europe. She could simply not imagine to live from then all the way to her current time, the year twenty seven.

She looked up as she heard footsteps passing by. It was him, wearing the long gown every teacher around here was wearing.

"Morning, sir," she said and smiled at him.

"Yes, hi," he said absent mindedly, going up the stairs.

"Head in the clouds, that one," Jenny said, who was scrubbing the floor with her. "Don't know why you're so sweet on him."

"He's just kind to me, that's all," she replied. "Not everyone's that considerate, what with me being-" she started, but wasn't sure how to finish, remembering Mira's talk about being careful what to say and not letting slip anything.

"A Londoner?" Jenny asked.

"Exactly. Good old London town."

Just then two of the older pupils stopped. She had seem them before, and didn't like them too much for they were quite arrogant.

"Er, now then, you two. You're not paid to have fun, are you? Put a little backbone into it," one of them said.

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," Jenny replied.

"You there, what's your name again?" the other one asked, addressing her.

"Martha, sir. Martha Jones," she replied.

"Tell me then, Jones. With hands like those, how can you tell when something's clean?" Before she could reply anything they walked away, laughing.

"That's very funny, sir," she murmured.

"Careful, now. Don't answer back," Jenny said, and, as to support her, she could feel eyes on her, and as she looked up, she saw Mira standing across the room, having watched the scene, now slightly shaking her head at her, asking her to be quiet as well.

"I'd answer back with my bucket over his head," she whispered wilfully to Jenny.

"Oh, I wish," Jenny replied. "Just think, though. In a few years time, boys like that'll be running the country."

"Nineteen thirteen," she said thoughtfully, knowing exactly that the first world war was about to come. "They might not."


Mira

She was just on her way to his rooms to bring him some papers he had forgotten in the classroom, as she heard a loud bang as if something – or someone – was falling down the stairs. She hurried around the corner only to find the Doctor – Mr Smith – lying on the floor, rubbing his head.

"Oh my God," she said and hurried over to him. "You're alright? Wait, don't move," she added as he started to try to get up again. "Have you broken anything?"

She looked at him intently, but he seemed to be alright – apart from his head and his hurt pride. He was not in great pain, and only slightly shocked. A moment later a woman was at her side, also tending to him. She had seen her before, it was the school's nurse, wasn't it?

"I'm fine," he finally said, looking back and forth between the two women. "Just hit my head, but – ouch!" he yelled as he touched the back of his head.

Together they helped him up and lead him to his room, where the nurse sat him down on a chair. Then she hurried off and was back a few moments later with her big bag full of bandages and stuff.

Then she started to tend to the lump on his head, but it didn't prove to be too easy with him shifting and trying to get away from her hands, in between telling her weird stories from his dreams. Oh, she wished he would only stop telling each and every one about them. Quite the opposite of keeping their heads down.

"Stop it," the nurse finally said. "I get boys causing less fuss than this."

"Because it hurts," he replied indignant.

Just then the door flew open, Martha bursting in. "Is he all right?" she asked.

"He's fine," she replied, "it's only-"

"Excuse me, Martha," the nurse interrupted her. "It's hardly good form to enter a master's study without knocking."

"Sorry. Right. Yeah," Martha replied, went back to the door, knocking on it. "But is he all right? They said you fell down the stairs, Sir," she added.

"No, it was just a tumble, that's all," the Doctor replied.

"Have you checked for concussion?" Martha addressed the nurse.

"I have," the nurse replied. "And I dare say I know a lot more about it than you."

"Sorry," Martha said and she was more than glad that Martha wasn't in for confronting that nurse. "I'll just tidy your things."

"I was just telling Nurse Redfern, Matron, about my dreams," the Doctor said. "They are quite remarkable tales. I keep imagining that I'm someone else, and that I'm hiding."

Yeah, Redfern, that was her name.

"Hiding? In what way?" Redfern asked.

"They're almost every night," the Doctor said. "This is going to sound silly."

Martha had left the room again, and Redfern was throwing a glance over to her, leaving no room for interpretation that she wanted her gone as well.

"Never mind me, I guess I know all of them. He's having them for a long time now," she replied casually, making no move to leave the room.

"Tell me then," Redfern said to him.

"I dream, quite often, that I have two hearts," the Doctor said, and she wished she could just shush him.

"Well, then. I can be the judge of that. Let's find out," Redfern replied, holding her stethoscope to listen to his heartbeat.

Now that was enough, she decided. She had to listen, but certainly not to look. She noticed the short, surprised wave of emotion coming from him as she shut the door to his room from outside. There she waited, listening not only with her ears to what was going on in there. If he would just leave that woman alone. Redfern was fond of him, and he seemed to discover just the same feeling in himself. She was more annoyed than anything else about that fact. She knew it wasn't him, not the Doctor she knew who grew fond of that grey wallflower of a nurse. Well, that was really not fair, she thought. Redfern had a gentle and humble character, no need to be mean to her. But it would definitely complicate things more than she liked.

Finally, she heard Redfern walking towards the door, and she hurried to get away from it, out of her line of sight. As she finally walked out, she hurried after her, having overheard that he gave her his journal.

"How is he?" she asked, and then, as if totally by coincidence, she nodded at the book Redfern was holding. "Oh, that's his book? He will go search for it, so better-"

"Oh, I'll look after it." Redfern replied. "Don't worry. He did say I could read it."

"It's just stories, weird things, I guess I could write a book myself about them by now-"

"Mira, isn't it? His secretary?" Redfern interrupted her. "Who is he?"

"Sorry?" she replied, trying to look as confused as possible. "You know who he is, Mr Smith-"

"No, I don't mean his name," Redfern replied. "Who is he? It's like he's left the kettle on. Like he knows he has something to get back to, but he can't remember what."

"Well, that's him. Always a bit preoccupied."

"You work for him for a long time now? It's quite unusual for someone in his position to have his own secretary," Redfern said.

"Oh, I'm not only doing his paperwork. And yes, I'm working for him for quite a few years now. I- My father was his former Mentor. And..." So the time had finally come to make up something, so she continued, "As my father fell ill, and for I had always helped out him and my father with their paperwork, he asked him to look out for me, even more so that my husband had died a few weeks earlier, and-"

"I am sorry to hear that, I really am," Redfern said, taking her hands for a short moment. "I know how hard it is to lose a husband. But even though he was close to your father, you should never forget that you work for him. You seem to be a bit too familiar with him at times."

Oh, so we're down to that level now?

"Well, it seems we're in the same boat then," she said in her most kindest voice and smiled at Redfern. "You, the school's nurse, and I, a secretary."


Martha

She was sitting on a table next to Mira, just outside the pub, where it was cold and dark, two pints in front of them. It it was for her they would sit inside, but Mira had said that that wasn't going to happen.

"Ooo, it's freezing out here," she said for probably the sixth time. "Why can't we have a drink inside the pub?"

"Because we can't, Martha. It's not right at this time for us to sit in the pub. It's just not going to happen. It's more than enough for us to be here. We should be in our rooms instead and behave. Like it or not, that's how it is," Mira replied, elbows on the table, face in her hands, her eyes staring into the darkness.

"Oh, how revolutionary it would be to just go inside and show them," she replied sarcastically and grabbed her pint, pretending to get up.

"Martha, don't. We're not here to start a social revolution, so not one more word about that, got it?" Mira told her. "Dammit, we just have to keep our heads down. Have you any idea how hard it is to not swear for the whole day? If I had my way, I would tell them all off and you could have slapped that guy with the bucket. After emptying it – right over his head. But we really have to be careful."

Despite the feeling of utter annoyance which was filling her, she had to smile. Yes, Mira was indeed swearing an awful lot. And she would really like to see that nurse hearing it, all taken aback and being shocked.

"Fine," she sighed, "We stay out in the cold then." She shot a sideways glance to Mira, her curiosity taking over. She had never really been alone with Mira like that, and somehow there was a chatty mood between them. "Say, what did the Doctor mean by saying you live for one and a half millennium now and still have no patience? You're not really fifteen hundred years old, are you?"

"No," Mira replied, taking a sip.

"Ah, well, would have really been old then-"

"It's rather sixteen hundred," Mira added after putting the pint down again.

"What?!" was all she could say, and her head flung round to Mira, who was still staring into the darkness.

Sure, she had understood perfectly well what Mira had just said, but she had a hard time comprehending it. Strangely enough though, it was reassuring, sort of. Mira must have seen a lot of things, even weirder stuff than she herself had since travelling with the Doctor, so she could rely on her to get them through this, even though the Doctor wasn't quite himself right now. And yet, she still tried to find some frame of reference for a lifetime of sixteen hundred years.

"The Roman Empire!" she heard herself say out loud, immediately regretting it.

"What's with it?" Mira asked and finally turned her head as well so that they were looking into each other's eyes now.

"All in all, it lasted for about fifteen hundred years, didn't it?"

"Yeah, well. The eastern one, they weren't that successful in the west, were they? At least in my universe," Mira replied.

"So you could have witnessed all of it? It's rise and fall...," she said, now totally excited about that – or maybe it was just the situation, here in nineteen thirteen, feeling a bit lost with the Doctor not being himself, and sitting here out in the dark that added to it all feeling rather surreal.

"The rise and fall of an Empire, eh?" Mira said and laughed quietly. "It was not the Roman Empire though, and not so much the rise but the prime and the fall of the Solar Empire, but yes. Weird when something that seemed so huge, so... permanent suddenly isn't there any more. Well, not that suddenly of course, but at some point you look back and think, what the hell happened?" Mira sighed again, spinning what little was left in her pint. "I have to warn you though; I can be horribly melancholic. There's probably not a single old-people cliche I'm not guilty of. You know, back in the old days... When everything was better. The grass was greener and so on." She gave Martha a lob-sided grin, and she couldn't help herself but smile as well. Oh well, Mira seemed to have a good sense of humour, not taking herself too seriously and they would get along somehow.

"Ah, here you are!" Jenny's voice came out of the dark. "Freezing out in the dark." She sat down next to her.

"Yeah, I already said that," she replied. "But we can't go inside. Would want to, though."

"Now don't be ridiculous," Jenny replied. "You do get these notions! It's all very well, those Suffragettes. but that's London. That's miles away."

"But don't you just want to scream sometimes, having to bow and scrape and behave. Don't you just want to tell them?" she said, feeling Mira nudging her.

"I don't know. Things must be different in your country," Jenny said.

"Yeah, well they are. Thank God I'm not staying," she replied.

"You keep saying that," Jenny said.

"Just you wait. One more month and I'm as free as the wind. I wish you could come with me, Jenny. You'd love it."

"Where are you going to go?"

"Anywhere. Mira and I actually," she replied. "Just look up there. Imagine you could go all the way out to the stars."

"You don't half say mad things," Jenny said.

"Think she had a bit too much to drink," Mira whispered, but loud enough for Jenny to hear.

Ignoring Mira, she continued, "That's where I'm going. Into the sky, all the way out."

Then she saw something flashing in the sky in a weird, greenish hue. She felt Mira sitting up straight next to her, so she had seen it as well.

"Did you see that?" she asked Jenny.

"See what?"

"Did you see it, though? Right up there, just for a second."

"Martha, there's nothing there," Jenny said.

Then a figure broke through the bushes, and she saw it was nurse Redfern.

"Matron, are you all right?" she said, standing up now.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Mira was also standing up now and had taken a few steps away from their little group, searching the sky.

"Did you see that?" Redfern asked. "There was something in the woods. This light."

Then, as if it hadn't been enough chaos, the Doctor stepped out of the pub.

"Anything wrong, ladies?" he asked. "Far too cold to be standing around in the dark, don't you."

"There, there. Look in the sky," Redfern said and pointed up.

And indeed, there was the light again, sliding through the sky with a tail like a comet.

"Oh, that's beautiful," Jenny said, seeing it now herself.

"All gone," the Doctor said. "Commonly known as a meteorite. It's just rocks falling to the ground, that's all."

"It came down in the woods," Redfern said.

"No, no, no. No, they always look close, when actually they're miles off," the Doctor explained. "Nothing left but a cinder. Now, I should escort you back to the school. Ladies?"

"No, we're fine, thanks," she hurried to say.

Meteorite? Certainly not. It was clear that she and Mira had to go investigate.

"Then I shall bid you goodnight," he said and left, followed by Redfern.

"Jenny, where was that?" she asked. "On the horizon, where the light was headed."

"That's by Cooper's Field," Jenny replied. "Listen, it's cold and late. I'll head off as well."

"Night Jenny," she said and watched her disappear.

"That was definitely no Meteorite," Mira said eventually. "Looked more like a landing spaceship to me."

"A spaceship? Really?" she replied, feeling quite uncomfortable now. "Let's check it out, should we?"


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